What’s an ND filter? Sunglasses for your camera.
“ND” stands for “neutral density.” Neutral density, what does that do? It reduces the light going into your camera, which controls your exposure. There are two main applications:
1. In video, if you’re outside in broad daylight and want a shallow field depth, achieving that will be next to impossible if you don’t have an ND filter. So you have your aperture at f/1.4, bringing your ISO down as low as possible. And your only option is to increase your shutter, but if you increase your shutter, the motion will not look right. So what else do you do? You add an ND filter. It allows you to have a shallow depth of field while controlling your exposure.
2. If you’re shooting photography, you might thinking, well, can I increase my shutter? You can, unless you want to have a lot of motion blur. Why would you want to have a lot of motion blur? Let’s say you’re shooting water, maybe specifically a waterfall, and you don’t want to see each drop of water. You want to have a nice smooth flow. Then you need to drag your shutter and slow your shutter down. And to do that, you’ll need to put on an ND filter.
